TWD: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

This week’s TWD was chosen by Jacque of Daisy Lane Cakes: cottage cheese pufflets! Ok – moment of honesty: before I even looked at the recipe my first thought was “ewwww, cottage cheese!” I’m really not a cottage cheese fan so the cottage cheese pufflets didn’t exactly excite me. On top of that, there was a lot of discussion over on the P&Q’s and on Twitter about the dough for the pufflets being fussy. Since the dough for the turnovers last week gave me fits, I didn’t relish the thought of struggling again this week. All that said, the recipe was easy to scale down (I made 1/4) so I figured why not at least give it a shot.

The results reminded me why I wanted to be a part of this group. I’ve flipped through Dorie’s book a million times and never once have I noticed this recipe so it’s likely I would never have tried it, but I ended up loving it! I kept the dough well chilled and really didn’t find it any more difficult to work with than other pastry dough. Instead of rolling it out between wax paper or plastic wrap, I just went with a really well floured counter. Instead of cutting the dough into squares, I made circles with a 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter and I filled half of my pufflets with Nutella and half with blueberry preserves. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, some of my pufflets got really puffy in the oven and some stayed fairly flat. They were, however, all really flaky and delicious! The dough isn’t too sweet so it worked well with both the Nutella and the blueberry preserves and I really couldn’t pick a favorite. I’m planning to use the leftover cottage cheese to make these again with different fillings too!

Many thanks to Jacque for a great pick this week! You can find the recipe on her site and head on over to TWD to check out all of this week’s treats.

These look wonderful! Your photos are beautiful and I am sure the little pufflets appreciated your post this week and your lovely photo as they were getting some less than enthusiatic press from many! We liked them, too, but just too fussy for me for a regular routine kind of thing. Maybe for the Christmas tray this year, however.

Oh Tracey – these are SOOO cute! How on earth did you get them to get that wonderful shape? I am so impressed – love the powdered sugar – yours looks so nice and fresh. Great filling choices too! Nicely done!

We really enjoyed this one too! Isn’t it great when you aren’t particularly excited about a recipe but end up loving it? I didn’t find the dough any more difficult to work with than most pastry dough either. I might have just jinxed myself for the next time I make these! Yours look beautiful – I LOVE the nutella version; why didn’t I think of that?

Yay! Your puffs look great. I thought the dough was not too bad to work with if I kept it chilled and a well floured counter. I didn’t really have issues, but I could tell when it was getting sticky. I did a bunch of different things, and debated Nutella, but didn’t. Now I wish I would have!

I’m so upset I didn’t make these! They look great- and you’re right, this is exactly the reason why I joined too! I don’t even remember seeing this recipe in the book, but it seems like a serious winner! Gorgeous job!